Information AboutLosso |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT LOSSO | |
| ethnic groups in togo | |
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PEOPLE The "Losso" are an ethnic and linguistic group of people living in the Doufelgou District of the Kara Region in Northern Togo , West Africa. The district capital is Niamtougou. They live on a plateau between two mountain ranges in the communities of Niamtougou and Koka (Canton of Niamtougou-Koka); Baga and Ténéga (Canton of Baga-Ténéga); and Siou, Djorergou, Sioudouga, Padeba, Hago, Koukou, and Kounfaga (Canton of Siou). They are primarily engaged in Subsistence Farming and small animal husbandry. They grow millet and sorghum that they make into a thick porridge (la pâte) that is the staple of their diet and that they brew into a thick low-alcohol beer called dam. They also grow Yams and Cassava , Groundnuts (peanuts), beans, and Fonio . In the late 1800s, early European explorers such as the ethnographer, Leo Frobenius , baptized them the "palm tree people" because of the concentration of Oil Palm trees in their home area. Lossos have migrated in search of fertile available land to the area between Sokodé and Notsé, where they have founded numerous communities. In addition, they have migrated to Togo's capital city, Lomé , and to Accra , the capital of Ghana , in search of wage employment, and to the Plateau Region of Togo and the Volta Region of Ghana where they work as Sharecroppers in Coffee and Cocoa plantations. Losso men were numerous in the colonial armies of Germany, Britain, and France as well as in the Ghanaian and Togolese armies in the years following independence. LANGUAGE The Lossos call themselves Nawde (singular) or Nawdba (plural), and their language is Nawdm . There is a total of approximately 200,000 native speakers of Nawdm in Togo and Ghana. Nawdm most closely resembles the Yom language of the Pila-Pila people who live near the city of and the Lamba, the languages do not resemble each other and are not mutually intelligible. PROMINENT LOSSOS ALASSOUNOUMA, BOUMBERA - Boumbéra Alassounouma was from Niamtougou. He served in the Cabinet of President Eyadéma as Minister of Education and was Ambassador to France. In 1994, he was named Foreign Minister in the coalition government of Prime Minister Edem Kodjo. On June 2, 1995, Alassounouma was killed in a freak accident at the construction site of his new home in Lomé. DADJO, KLEBER, COL. - The late Col. Kléber Dadjo , was from Siou. He was born on August 12, 1914. Col. Dadjo served in the British Army during World War II and in the French Army in the IndoChina and Algeria conflicts. At the time of Togo's independence in 1960, he was the longest-serving and highest-ranked Togolese in the French Army. He held the rank of Major and commanded Togo's tiny defense force, the Garde Togolaise. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel after the 1963 coup d'état and served as head of the military cabinet of President Nicolas Grunitzky . After the second military coup d'état in Togo on January 13, 1967, Dadjo was named interim President of Togo, a position that he held until April 14, 1967, when Lt. Col. Etienne Gnassingbé Eyadéma was named President. From 1967 through 1968, he served as Minister of Justice. In 1969, he retired and returned to his home in Siou where he became Chef de Canton. He died in 1979. Col. Dadjo is frequently and erroneously identified in print as a Kabyé rather than a Nawde (or Losso). (Sources include: Decalo, Samuel, Historical Dictionary of Togo, Third Edition, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996, pp. 106-107) YWASSA, LEONARD BAGUILMA - Léonard Baguilma Ywassa was born on December 1, 1926, in Koka (now Canton of Niamtougou-Koka) in Doulfelgou Prefecture. Ywassa was an agronomist who graduated from the Agricultural College of Nancy (France). In the 1950s, he served in several positions of the agricultural services and was active in the political party of Nicolas Grunitzky , l'Union Démocratique des Populations Togolaises - UDPT. He held a ministerial post under Grunitzky from 1956 until the latter's ouster in the elections of 1958. He was an oppostion politician of the UDPT under Sylvanus Olympio 's CUT government until opposition parties were banned and a single-party state was created in 1962. When Grunitzky assumed power after the 1963 coup d'état, he served as Director of Agriculture and then Minister of Rural Economy until Grunitzky was overthrown in the 1967 coup. In 1968, he was named Ambassador to France, Great Britain and the European Economic Community. He later served in several high-level positions in the Ministry of Rural Economy until his retirement in 1986. He died in 2004. (Sources include: Decalo, Samuel, Historical Dictionary of Togo, Third Edition, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996, pp. 292-293.) |
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